Current fiscal sponsorships:

FISHING is a comedy web series that explores the world of online dating and current attitudes toward cyber-identity and authenticity through the eyes of eight distinct people in search of love, purpose and justice. This is a series for lovers of Romantic Comedies, Crime shows, and Shakespeare, alike. Fishing is produced and directed by a badass team of entirely women, and is written, designed, and crewed by phenomenal women, POC, and LGBTQ+ artists.

Duncan wants love. Casey wants justice, but their Catfisher’s unknown identity poses a slight problem for them both. Fishing is a series about love, technology, and lying. This dark and timely comedy is written, crewed up, and ready to rock your understanding of modern love.

Pete's Valve by Katy-May Hudson

Prudence and Roger meet for the first time. After asking him a series of unusual qualifying questions, we see them begin a temporary "relationship”, leading to the saving of one life and the ending of another. Pete’s Valve is a kooky, dark comedy about duty under duress, missed connections, deep regret, and the metaphorical, as well as physical placement of the human heart.

Katy-May Hudson is an interdisciplinary artist who has collaborated with artists and organizations such as Youtube TV, Whohaha, New York Women in Film and TV, ART/NY, Funny or Die, SVA Theater, University of Delaware and Hofstra University. She is the Creative Director of She Said Productions, Founder/Festival Director of The Brooklyn Women's Film Festival, & Co-Artistic Director of The New York Neo Futurists. Pete's Valve is KM's directorial debut and she could not be more thrilled to be doing it as part of SVA's Masters of Directing program.

What She Said by Shallow Graves

PHD candidate, Sam, should be nearly finished with her dissertation. Instead, she’s spent the the last year in and out of court pursuing charges against her rapist. When she receives news that the trial is postponed yet again, Sam heads to her family’s remote cabin in the Virginia woods, effectively ghosting everyone in her life. A few days before Thanksgiving, Sam’s oasis is interrupted as her brother comes barging in with Sam’s closest friends in tow, to stage a pseudo-intervention and convince her to return to the city and finish out the trial.

Shallow Graves strives to tell small stories that embody the human experience while exploiting the universal three-dimensionality of all people — whether those people live on a small screen, big screen, or eight times a week in a tiny blackbox. In this political climate and beyond, the goal is to focus on stories — damn good stories — by women about women, while providing platforms for intersectional storytelling by amplifying the voices of women of color and other marginalized groups. Follow them @shallowgravesNY

In Stitches by Hannah Rafkin and Meg Robbins

In a country with 11 national languages, not all are equal. South African comedians are fighting back by standing up for their mother tongues—and healing the wounds of apartheid in the process.

In Stitches follows three trailblazing South African comedians who are bringing their mother tongues to the stage. More than two decades after the fall of apartheid, 11 official languages thrive in South Africa.

Despite this, English continues to dominate the comedy scene. Sixty percent of the population cannot understand a word.

Vernacular comedians Noko Moswete, Luphelo Kodwa, and Zicco Sithole are flipping the script. Addressing the long-ignored South African majority, these artists are decolonizing comedy. Audiences are hooked. Vernac shows buzz with unparalleled energy, somewhere between a rock concert and a sermon. Never before have black South African audiences shared such powerful catharsis, led by magnetic comedians who look and sound like them. If laughter is the best medicine, these artists act as guerrilla medics, using humor to tend to the untreated masses.

This work isn’t easy. Offstage, these comedians face immense obstacles: media disinterest, family conflicts, sexism, and pressures to succeed in the nation’s fastest city.

ABOUT THE CREATORS:

Hannah Rafkin and Meg Robbins are co-directing and co-producing IN STITCHES, their first documentary. They are no strangers to working together, though—after meeting as freshmen in Film 101 and realizing they share a birthday, they soon became best friends and creative partners. Both Hannah and Meg are experienced storytellers, with backgrounds in print, digital, and photo journalism. They graduated from Bowdoin College in 2017 and spent a semester in Cape Town in 2015.

A documentary about a young Lakota woman who creates a girls’ boxing team on her reservation after losing her best friend to suicide.

Amidst rising suicide rates on the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation, Shaionna creates a girls boxing team with urgent hope of leading them down a safer path. The sassy pre-teen squad faces daily challenges with humor and slushy-stained smiles, but Shaionna’s lingering drug addiction taunts her all the while.

Magic Hour by Jacqueline Christy

Magic Hour is the first feature film by Jacqueline Christy. In this semi-semi-autobiographical film, Harriet, a 40-something housewife decides it is finally time to live for herself when her two-timing husband leaves both her and her bank account completely drained. She takes it upon herself to enroll in film school behind both her daughter and estranged husband's backs, and starts living life on her own terms. This Manhattan-based comedy starring acclaimed actress, Miriam Shor, explores the difficulties of starting anew as a woman in mid-life, and celebrates the notion that it is never too late to start again.

Read more about it from The Hollywood Reporter here & in Broadway World here!

Magic Hour is a film about a female filmmaker, which is being made by a diverse group of women both in front of and behind the camera. The film celebrates women of all ages and celebrates the idea that our best years are ahead of us, no matter age, gender, or creed.

Wham! by Wi-Moto Nyoka

Aquila and Sadiquah are two of the best students at 362 MLK Middle School. But when the school begins to break out into mysterious rage episodes, the uninfected will have to find the courage to save their school. And their future.

Mariel Neto began her career in entertainment working in professional theatre by the age of ten. After a success career on the stage, she fell in love with the camera after acting in her first feature film, Seven Minutes. Since then she has worked on a variety of films and television shows, including Showtime’s critically-acclaimed Masters of Sex. An avid writer of short fiction, poetry, and plays, Mariel was driven to explore screenwriting after moving to Los Angeles. Usually in front of the camera, this is her first foray into the production side of filmmaking. She has a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts where she studied Acting and Playwriting.